This invention relates to a drive attachment assembly for the discharge valve of a recreational vehicle. In such an RV, as they are called, the discharge for waste is held in a holding tank within the body of the vehicle, and when the discharge port is connected to a suitable receiver, the valve may be manually opened to discharge waste by reaching into the valve compartment behind a little door at the side of the vehicle and pushing down a handle.
Reaching into the holding tank compartment of an RV is not viewed as a pleasant experience, and often owners of such vehicles or their wives, avoid such a chore. In the U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,504 to Nicholson, the inventor provided a bolt-on attachment to an RV valve including an electrically powered screw drive to push down the handle of the discharge valve to open it. Such arrangements have been found desirable, considering the alternative. The bolt-on attachment has required, obviously, tools to attach it and has involved considerable lateral extension onto the housing of the valve.
Under the present invention the drive attachment may be snapped onto the housing of the discharge valve. It comprises a relatively flat drive housing which does not take up considerable space in the compartment.
The invention, thus, is an attachment for the discharge valve of an RV, the attachment being attachable onto the valve housing without the use of tools and comprising a back wall and integral side walls arranged in channel-shape and having snap-on detents on the inside of the distal ends of the side walls. The attachment also includes a reversible electric drive motor selectively powered to drive clockwise or counter-clockwise and a drive pinion on the shaft of the motor. A rack gear is disposed vertically in the attachment and engages a pinion.
The upper end of the rack is attached to one of the wings of the T-shaped handle normally provided on the valve. The attachment comprises a base at the upper end of the rack and a clip hinged to the base and adapted to snugly fit over the top of the wing and latch on the other side of the base to hold the handle securely.